Abstract:

Background: Obesity constitutes a major and a modifiable risk factor for the development of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and osteoarthritis. It has been linked with poor glycaemic control among type 2 diabetic patients. The number of individuals with obesity is increasing among diabetic patients, and obesity is found to be a problem in both developing and developed countries.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence, perception of obesity and associated factors among adult diabetics attending at Bugando Medical Centre.
Methodology: The study will be a prospective hospital based cross sectional study. It will include in patients and outpatients adult diabetics attending in Internal Medicine department at BMC. A self-administered questionnaire with structured questions and measurement of anthropometric values (body weight and height) will be used to collect data from participants.

Results: Prevalence of obesity among diabetic patients was 20%. The study done revealed that the factors associated with obesity were; being physically inactive (p-value 0.001), having uncontrolled glycemic levels (p-value 0.00) and the type of treatment used for diabetes (p-value 0.002) where a majority of the studied participants used lifestyle modification and oral hypoglycemics. Majority of the participants perceived obesity to be dangerous and did not see the need to maintain their current weight.

Conclusion: The prevalence of obesity in this study was high among diabetic patients though significantly lower than other studies previously done. The factors that were seen to be associated with obesity were physical inactivity, having uncontrolled glycemic levels and the type of treatment option used for diabetes. Obesity was perceived to be dangerous by the majority where most of the participants did not see the need to maintain their current body weight requiring more investigation.